B2 – Upper Intermediate
In recent years, companies have opted for open-plan offices to encourage employee interaction and collaboration. In a new study, however, having an open floor plan may in fact have the opposite effect and be counterproductive.
Read the article to find out more.
https://theconversation.com/a-new-study-should-be-the-final-nail-for-open-plan-offices-99756
Discussion Questions:
- What is the article all about? Explain in your own words.
- What are the pros and cons of having an open floor plan? What about a closed one?
- Talk about the layout or floor plan of your own company/office. How do you think can communication and teamwork be improved in your company?
4 replies on “Open-Plan Offices”
The article talks about open-plan offices. They are offices where there are not walls separating desks. All desks are in an open room.
The article explains the results of a research about the assesment of the employees in open-plan offices.
The investigators analized pro and cons about to implement this type of offices. Before the research, investigators thought open-plan office could estimulate social relationship between workers because they could have more oportunities to interchange. But, they realized when people needed to be concentrated to solve problems, they tend to be closed themselves and ignorate other people. Consequently, they talk less and write more emails. In closed offices people can be more focused, more concentraded and more productive.
When I began to work in the company where I worked we had closed offices. But, recently, it was changed to open-floor offices because it was cheaper, due to they put more people in a small room. I though it would be difficult to be concentrated. But, it was not too bad, people could be concentrated and they were not so distrated. Even though, I prefer close offices, because for me is difficult to work in a noisy place.
Thank you for sharing your experience working in both open-plan and segmented offices.
Your efforts are paying off. Keep at it.
1. The article talks about that Open-Plan Offices are not as good at it seemed some years ago because they favor to loose concentration.
2 With the Open-Plan you can easily communicate with your coworkers , work as a team, and discuss problems more effectively but you may get distracted or loose focus on the task you are doing, and in a close space, just the opposite.
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